TomB16 investing blog

When Tesla viciously cut prices last year, several companies announced they had no problem matching the new price level. BYD was one of the companies made great overtures about this.

While not an existential threat, we can now see BYD was hit hard by Tesla's aggressive pricing. When Berkshire sold off BYD, Buffett said he did not want to compete against Musk.

We have arrived at a time when advisories from companies are honest on rare occasions. 99% of news releases are intended for investors who believe such news releases. I estimate this group to make up roughly 80% of investors, on average; it varies by company.

For someone like me, who is a long term investor, I look for honesty in a CEO. It almost doesn't exist but it is there if you look for it. It's a lot easier to sleep at night, knowing your market investments are founded on the operations of a company that is generally doing a good job. My CEOs don't always meet their goals and they are occasionally wrong about things in a public way. I'm able to chalk these cases up to a mistake and continue to believe in these executives.

My residential REIT was the strongest performer in my portfolio, for about 18 months. These days, the dividend has been cut, the stock is well down, and the outlook is strong on survival but weak on excitement. I stopped reinvesting in this company in 2019 but I haven't sold a single share.

When I stop believing in the honesty of a CEO, they do not stay in my portfolio for long. If I still believe in them, I am a loyal partner.

I consider media outlets to be extremely greasy, in general. Countless things have been published that would not have been published, had those outlets been operated by people with integrity. As well as this lack of filter, media is inundated with corporate announcements that are built on barnyard fertilizer.

What is currently missing from my portfolio is risk. I consider this a sign of my own pessimism. I haven't found extreme value in a long time. This is why I've gone outside the market and focused on small business with some of our new money. At this time, this approach has not paid off. Time will tell if it was a wise move but I am comfortable with our situation. Comfort is the key to not doing dumb things.

 

I've been trying to learn about the new pneumonia strain that China invented.

As best I can tell, we are not under threat of another global pandemic.

 

The WHO has tabled international health regulations that will give them power to lock the world down. I expect nearly all western countries to sign on, with the possible exception of America and a couple of certain exceptions in Europe (Denmark, Sweden, perhaps Germany). Few organizations operate as openly with their corruption as the WHO.

I have no intention of ever voluntarily taking another vaccine. My trust and confidence in western medicine has dropped to near zero.

Denmark was the first country to drop all COVID restrictions, including travel restrictions, back in 2022. They also dropped their vaccination program while the world looked on in horror. I was watching and praying they would stop ruining the global economy and our lives. I was only on board with the vaccine and, to a lesser extent, lockdown during the very initial phase when we didn't know anything about COVID-19 and the world was both terrified and (with some justification) hysterical.

Now I've had COVID many times. I sniffle for a few days and carry on, like the extremely mild cold it has become.

While I'm ranting, Pfizer has an advertisement saying COVID is evolving so we should vaccinate. That is utter bullshit. Why would we vaccinate for a previous strain when the virus is evolving?

Anything negative about the vaccine or lock downs has been removed from the majority of medical publications citing, "This is not in the public good." There are a bunch of YouTube videos by prominent virologists telling us they haven't been able to publish a paper since COVID started, despite being leaders in the field. Too many researchers have been disregarded to ignore the fact that our science has been corrupted into non-science.

OK. Rant off. I will return to being the crazy old man who lives in a tent but doesn't bother anyone.

 

Now that I've upset everyone with my corruption/politics rant....

The last 6 trading days have been epic. Not the biggest gains of our investing careers but really good gains, every day. Our two stragglers really pulled up their socks but everything is up. While neither straggler has set an ATH, they are back in the comfort range.

Now that we have the opportunity to exit our positions, we have decided to do nothing. Because, that's what we do. Nothing.

If I was a bull, I would have heavily bought one of our two hardest hit REITs across the last two years. I believed in it and knew it would return, one day. I have no way to know if the current price will be sustained. No one does.

Instead, I went heavy on money markets. As retirees, it has been nice to know our future is secure.

While we are now at ATH, we would have done better to simply float with the S&P 500. Our trajectory is not any sort of victory but it is nice to see some positive numbers, as it's been a while.